It's the end of the world as you know it – brought to you by a Gnome Mage with big balls of fire

(LAN) Weekend that was

I was at a LAN, but primarily to catch up with my old mates in person for a change.

No Vent lag when you are all in the same room.

Anyway, I decided to stand my mates up for our usual (traditional) Friday night run. Instead I signed up for Guild Naxx raids for both Friday and Saturday nights. It’s so rare that I get to play both nights and combined with the chance to run Naxx 25, the opportunity was too good to miss.

Sorry guys, back with you next week!

So what did I do from Friday afternoon through to Sunday afternoon?

I did a bit of tailoring (410) and enchanting (405) leveling

And did a little shopping at the AH at the suggestion of a mate.

It occurred to me that I really hadn’t seen much of Northrend, so I thought I had at least pick up a few flight paths… never know when they might come in handy. Luckily I had a mate sitting right next to me, so I could look over his shoulder and get the co-ords.

1st stop was Zul’Drak

Followed quickly by Storm Peaks
At which point the call came to join the Guild in Naxx

Always good to get an early death out of the way.. it’s sort of like scratching the new car, once you have done it you can relax and get on with the job.

Time to knock over the Heroic Construct Quarter…

Got this for my trouble… just won it over someone else, sort of felt a little guilty…

Then these Boots of Impetuous Ideals nearly went to the guild bank. When I rolled I was asked to link my current boots… when they saw my level 70 boots… the raid in unison decided that they were an upgrade… Awesome… but that’s my raid rolls done… for the rest of the weekend I watched the Mage T7 set pieces come and go… but I think I have done pretty well for myself.

Better yet… doing it alive…

Good looking bunch of people, don’t you think? They are all awesome… great DPS, tanking, healing… follow raid leader instructions, keep Vent and chat noise to a minimum… yet they all have fun!

Look out Loatheb, here we come!

What’s this? Did we do something good, or did we just miss something?

OK, that’s what it means… still don’t know if it’s good or not, but I have an achievement to prove I did it…

Damn I hate spiders, all bugs in fact… but they didn’t last long enough to worry about.

Look out Sapphiron

Here we come…

All right, you win this time Sapphiron, but we will be back!

So that marked the end of my Naxx 25 run for Friday night… but I did sneak back in for 1 boss fight with my mates on Naxx 10. Unfortunately it was an unsuccessful attempt, but I was happy to note that my DPS wasn’t that far off the pace (It is hard to compare my “starting” DPS with folk that are all 3000+ dps, most in the 4,000 dps range, so it was nice to be on a more even footing and get a comparison.

A bit more exploration to be done… Crystal Song completed.

Just because I am paranoid doesn’t mean I am not being watched… OK?

Checked out the Argent Tournament… made it through the 1st hurdle… signing up!

My what a big one I have!

Even fully clothed I put a lot of the bigger races to shame

Even my mount has a big one!

Lance that is!

I look good my my flying mount with a lance… wish I could joust in the sky…

It was suggested by one of my mates that I have now seen more of Naxx than most of my mates, let alone Naxx 25, and I am not possibly as well, if not better equipped (if we judge that by iLevel 213 items).

Scored quite a few of these now… apparently I can use them for some gear enchants… will look into that.

You would think that with all the rituals of refreshment, that a Mage wouldn’t be the cause of Dehydration… but this time around, I was the cause of it… it would appear I am a good clicker…

As a bonus I picked up a new pair of legs… still as short as the old ones unfortunately… need to work out whether to break my average set bonus though…

Otherwise I did some questing in Storm Peaks, and picked up a couple of upgrades.

@ZupaDK: You worry about them tabbards when you hit level 80 instances & honored with the Northrend factions… well selected Northrend factions.

Then you toss you guild tabbard or “old jocks” tabbard in the bank, and wear your “Gimme Rep” tabbard (through 80’s instances) till you get the required rep.. then you throw that one in the bank and wear your next “Gimme Rep” tabbard through 80’s instances.

@Cathy: So great to see the special report on the “street” from the WoW Street Journal coming back for more! I meant to reply to your message from yesterday… but just didn’t get to it today.

Check it out folks… what’s Hot and Not in the Warcraft AH near you!

I am fortunate in that I play with a core group of friends.. some I have known for 30 years.. the reason we get together at a LAN is to catchup while enjoying one of our passions… or lots of them, in the form of computer games.

When we have a LAN, we are in for the long haul, so it’ play till you drop, and as soon as you wake back into it, so a public space doesn’t really fit the bill.

One of us will offer up our hours every 2-3 months, usually some special occasion (birthdays, long weekends etc). Free beds get filled, couches become beds… hell we will throw the sleeping bag under the table if that’s the best we get (Sometimes it’s worth wimping out early to get the best sleeping place).

You don’t need the whole crew.. just enough to make it a bit more social… make sure you mute Vent for those in the same room.. you don’t need the echo, but that way you can still be in touch with everyone in your raid on the day.

If you aren’t in the position to host the LAN at your place (You just need a couple of tables, and even your home network routers will do, as long as you have enough ports), then make it an all-day event at a public place… or a weekend event if you can organize enough local beds.

One thing I know is that the WoW blogsphere is packed to the rafters with Canadians… Krizzlybear, Matticus to name a couple off the top of my head…

WOW that sounds crazy fun. I always thought people were at Cyber cafes or event rooms in hotels or something.

Our guild master has become one my best friends in the last year. We speak on the phone almost every day and I would love to meet her. We seem to have a good concentration of folks in the Miami area so I’m hoping to head that way next week. I’m so excited to sit with these folks in person. Then I can actually get up and hit these people over the head in person if they wipe us:) hehehe

Busy little gnome! You are now seriously getting pimped out in gear. You’ll be carrying the Flameheart for a while, unless you get lucky in your next Naxx. Gratz!

I wish I could pop Mirror Image and have them finish all my exploring…

@jrgette
The add on looks like RatingBuster, available at Curse. Absolutely indispensable for me.

I also recommend EquipCompare from WoWInterface to be able to pull up and compare your current gear with drops. (I think the standard UI only allows you to compare with equipped items when at the AH or a vendor.)

And LinkWrangler from Curse if you want to compare more than 2 items at a time.

@Cathy: Welcome aboard the WoWBlogging express… don’t try to get off… it never stops…
Too much to read… (don’t tell anyone, but I read as much as possible in my feedreader then mark the rest as read)

Oh… your GM is a Gun Loving Dwarf Chick… I think you will have plenty of fun… well assuming you ever stop laughing long enough to appreciate it.

Say “Hi” right back at her next time you speak! I think her’s is the only non-WoW blog I read right now….

@jrgette: Arioch covered it… RatingBuster is the one… which I found through a similar comment on someone elses blog some time back.

@Arioch: I think I gave up on EquipCompare, but live by LinkWrangler… was showing it off to my mates over the weekend. I love having all the boss drops up on my screen.. closing each one as I loose the roll.

Things slow down now… back to usual mate’s 6 man raids… which is 6+puggers…